Day 305: Trump, Godwin’s law, and history

Straight from the man himself, this is a very real tweet by Mike Godwin (Here).

Godwin’s law states simply “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” Coined by Mike Godwin, Godwin’s law is often invoked when talking about Trump or the horrid state the so-called US democracy is in. Here’s the catch, the law was suspended by Godwin himself when talking about Trump and company, for very good reasons.

How many coincidences need to occur before we call them deliberate? One, three, five? Does it matter? There are 365 days in a year, so there is a 1/365 chance (0.27%) that the president would sign a law stripping LGBTQ+ healthcare protections on the anniversary of the pulse club shooting (timeline of that day here). The cruelty is the point. Maybe he didn’t know you shout, okay well let’s give the benefit of the doubt.

Ax handle Saturday. An infamous event that occurred in Jacksonville, Florida that saw a group of KKK members brutally attack a group of black protestors, then went on to brutalize any black person they could find (more here). There are still 365 days in a year and a 1/365 chance (0.27%) that Trump would accept the GOP nomination on the anniversary of the event. Hint, he will be. Hint, he is doing in it Jacksonville, Florida (no, really). I wonder what the conditional probability is that he would hold his rally on the anniversary of ax handle Saturday given he is in Jacksonville, Florida. The cruelty is the point.

Today is Juneteenth. The day the U.S (FINALLY) forced, like literally forced with the military, the last holdout of slavery (Texas, of course) to let them go. You most likely never learned about this in school (here’s more reading). Surprise! Trump was going to hold a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma that day. He eventually “rescheduled” after the backlash (more here). So now I ask what are the odds that he would do everything above on these very significant dates, then add yet another thing to that list?

While Trump has the attention span of a toddler, the people he employs know full well what they are doing. They also know that because Trump is a vapid pile of shit they have probable deniability. Trump and his cabinet are chocked full of Nazi’s, the literal kind. The kind of people Mike Godwin suspends his law over.

These are the same people using Nazi iconography for advertising (read more). The same people using phrases that invoke Nazism, like “good bloodlines” when describing Nazi favorite Henry Ford (read more). The same people using anti-Semitism to describe political opponents (read more). These are people who know what they are doing and know they can get away with it.

All these things, if taken individually, could almost be brushed away as a coincidence or a gaff. Taken as a whole, we are left with the undeniable truth that these things aren’t randomly occurring. It’s statistically impossible that these are random events. The cruelty is the point. If you didn’t see it before, I hope you see it now.

This isn’t an accident and these people aren’t ignorant of the history. They are celebrating it. The cruelty is the point.